Pool Tables

Two men who had apparently been drinking together walked out of a bar in Santa Clarita and fatally shot each other moments later in an "old-fashioned shoot-out," sheriff's deputies said Saturday. The reason for the gunfight late Friday night is not known, Deputy Bill Wehner said. Witnesses said they heard gunfire after the men walked outside Trail's Tavern on San Fernando Road around 11:30 p.m. The two were found lying in the parking lot.

Virgilio Medeiros, a defendant who was acquitted in a March, 1984, trial of gang-raping a woman on a pool table at Big Dan's Tavern, is suing the city of New Bedford and a policeman for alleged civil rights violations, his lawyer said Tuesday. The suit charges "a continued pattern of police harassment" and contends that Detective Sgt. Ronald Cabral pressured witnesses before a grand jury to change statements they had earlier given to police, Francis O'Boy, Medeiros' attorney, said.

Around noon they steal in from the street brightness and, carrying pool cues in little cases, go past the bar back to yesterday, which is a dim, heatless room that smells of beer and grandfathers and has tables covered with green felt. This is Joe Jost's, a 64-year-old relic/tavern/pool parlor squeezed between a fishing tackle store and shoe repair shop on Anaheim Street in Long Beach.

For a while, it seemed, Don Brostoski was behind the eight ball. His company, Golden West Billiard Mfg. Inc. of Canoga Park, is a leading maker of pool tables, a business that once was tied firmly to the housing industry. In 1982, when the economy was bad and housing construction plunged, privately held Golden West chalked up a loss. Not only did orders slump, but retailers couldn't pay for tables they already had.

To 16-year-old Stephanie Sellers, the Anaheim Fun Center video arcade is "like a second home." To surrounding residents and officials of neighboring Anaheim High School, the arcade is a nuisance. This week, using a city code that prohibits amusement arcades within 600 feet of a school without the principal's permission, city officials plan to permanently close the arcade at 884 W. Lincoln Ave.